


anodyne kiss

by crookedspoon



Series: Exchange Fics [83]
Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Biting, Cunnilingus, Cunnilingus to relieve period cramps, F/F, Flash With Benefits 2020, Hurt/Comfort, No Harrow the Ninth Spoilers (Locked Tomb Trilogy), POV Coronabeth Tridentarius, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Corona is in pain. Ianthe helps.
Relationships: Coronabeth Tridentarius/Ianthe Tridentarius
Series: Exchange Fics [83]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/51139
Comments: 11
Kudos: 37
Collections: Flash With Benefits





	anodyne kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



"Don't you have necromantic mysteries to unravel?" Coronabeth asks, not out of any real interest or even a desire to send her sister away, but simply to say something. She can't abide the silence between them. It's like she can hear the schemes going around in Ianthe's brain. Especially when they're so close.

For a moment, she thinks her sister hadn't heard because Ianthe doesn't lift her head from Corona's shoulder, doesn't stop rubbing the hypogastric region of Corona's abdomen. She just shifts closer.

It's a little uncomfortable for Coronabeth, who is sweating an unseemly amount. It's so unfair how _ugly_ pain makes her. Even Babs shuns the sight of her like this. The moment he found out what ails Corona, he practically _ran_ for the training hall. So much for "a cavalier having their necromancer's back at all times." She ought to have him demoted, but too late for that now.

"I can afford to take some time off," Ianthe drawls lazily. "It's not like anyone is going to beat me to the punch anytime soon."

If Coronabeth hadn't been in the amount of pain she's in, she might have spared a second to roll her eyes. Her sister has always been so sure of her own superiority. It's what, at any other time, makes her sneer at Corona, who does not have an ounce of necromantic ability in her. Or maybe pity her, which is just as bad. Perhaps if Corona had had the courage to face up to what her parents deem her "failure"— but no, at this point it would do more harm than good. They have sealed their fate a long time ago, when they were too young to know about the consequences.

"Sometimes I envy you," she mutters, letting her head loll to the side.

"Whatever for, dear sister?" Ianthe's voice is as sickly innocent as a lamb's – or rather a wolf's in a lamb's disguise. There's nothing really soft and woolly about her sister, not even her hair, although they use the same conditioner. Coronabeth thinks that that's very tragic as she twines her sister's brittle locks around her fingers.

"You never get like this," she complains a little more petulantly than intended. It's not Ianthe's fault that she's in pain – nevermind that a part of her suspects Ianthe to have somehow done away with her analgesics. Corona was so sure she'd packed them!

"There are upsides to being a necromancer," Ianthe says and rolls onto her back, gazing up at Corona with her washed-out violet eyes.

Corona groans and shifts. And shifts again. There's just no position she can assume that provides any relief. Perhaps she should move. She doesn't know which way to twist her legs anymore, so she might as well use them to drag herself to the training hall.

"Maybe I ought to join Babs," she says. "Exercise my muscles a bit." 

She rests the back of her hand on her forehead, because even the thought of walking all those many stairs makes her feel faint. No, she can't let any of the other Houses see her like this, paler than even her sister and about to crumple into a heap of golden robes and hair. 

Ianthe continues staring at her for the longest time, though whether she's calling Corona an imbecile in her head (not enough onlookers to be saying it to her face) or whether she's weighing her next words, Corona can't tell.

"There are other ways to exercise your muscles," she says eventually, each word dragging out as if reluctant to leave her mouth.

"What do you mean?" At this point, she'd be willing to try anything.

"Why, sex, of course."

Ianthe says this so casually as if suggesting they get a haircut. Coronabeth eyes her with as little expression as she can muster in her current state, hoping that her sister wouldn't rest her head against her shoulder again, so close to where she could hear Corona's traitorous heart beating frantically.

"There _are_ certain individuals on the premises that I wouldn't mind taking to bed," she says, voice carefully neutral, "but there's no guarantee any of them would readily join me while I'm like this."

"That sort of insecurity is not like you, dear sister," Ianthe coos. "I'm pretty sure that Ninth House cav would at least take you no matter what you look like."

"Do you think?" Corona purses her lips, trying to remember anything about the girl in question. "I can't tell with those shades."

"If she hasn't been checking out your _assets_ behind those sunglasses, I'm eating my robe."

"You're always so crass, Ianthe," Coronabeth says, with just a hint of accusation, but she's smiling, too. She'd love to get to the bottom of the mystery of what that cav looks like beneath her robes and paint.

"Don't pretend like you don't enjoy it." When Ianthe smiles like that, Coronabeth can think of few things more unsettling.

"Maybe I don't." She shivers, and her cunt pulses, as though her body had already figured out what Ianthe is going to suggest next.

"But I know a thing you'd most definitely enjoy," Ianthe says, a self-assured smile on her bloodless lips. Her fingers are playing with the straps of Corona's plain singlet.

And then her bloodless lips are on Corona's. A thrill shoots through her from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head, laying fire in its wake. The pain seems distant now, still bubbling beneath the surface but unimportant, as Corona slings her legs around her sister to draw her closer.

Ianthe kisses more with her teeth than with her tongue, but it's something so _Ianthe_ that Corona can't help but be into it. Her sister seems to have that effect on her, always winning her over to things she wouldn't have cared for otherwise. And right now, anything that takes her mind off of her lower body is a _splendid_ idea.

Not that it takes Ianthe long to re-route Corona's attention there. One moment she's nibbling Corona's jaw and neck – which Corona enjoyed – peeling her sweat-tacky singlet just high enough to expose her aching breasts and nibble at them in turn – which Corona didn't enjoy so much – the next she's leaving teeth marks all the way down Corona's stomach.

With any other person Coronabeth would have complained about the treatment, but one look in her sister's darkly gleaming eyes and whatever protest she might have had is swallowed and forgotten. Wherever the two of them go together, people can't help but compare them, which is really not that hard to do. Their differences are quite plain. Although Coronabeth has been part of a package deal right from the start, she is often viewed as the original, and Ianthe as her pale copy. But like this, with her smiling wickedly from between Corona's thighs, a deep pink flush igniting her cheeks like a sunburn, her sister is radiant and beautiful.

Selfishly, Coronabeth hopes that no one is ever going to see her like this, not only because she wants to keep the image for herself, but because she's sure that whoever sees it would fall head over heels for her sister. Despite being a twin, Corona had never liked sharing. Had certainly never liked sharing her sister. There's a reason they decided to shroud their lives in a lie, and at the heart of that decision was the simple desire to never be apart. At the time, Coronabeth could not have anticipated how much that lie would come to chafe, though perhaps Ianthe had understood what it would mean for them eventually. She had always been just a little too prescient for comfort.

"You're already so wet, dear sister," Ianthe says, lightly dragging a finger through her folds. It's a measure of how aroused Corona is that she forgets all about feeling raw and exposed and instead focuses only on the thrill Ianthe's caress produces. The tip of her finger comes away red but Ianthe pops it into her mouth nonetheless, as if Corona's menstrual blood was nothing more than strawberry jelly. Corona swallows.

She supposes that being a necromancer cancels out being squeamish. In the two decades they have spent together almost joined at the hip, she should have come to expect that there are no boundaries Ianthe won't cross, but for some reasons she continuously underestimates her. Perhaps because it's safer that way.

Still, she can't help but ask, "You're really going to do... _that?!"_

"If by _that_ you mean eat you out," Ianthe drawls, kneading the insides of Corona's thighs, "then yes, that is precisely what I'm about to do. Objections?"

"I'm..." She snaps her mouth shut again, unable to think. Ianthe's long fingers are drawing the ache right out of her hip joints and it feels so damn good. All she can do is tangle her own fingers into Ianthe's lank hair and scritch the back of her skull.

Ianthe's eyelids flutter. She heaves a sigh – and then a _jolt_ crashes through Corona as her sister sinks her teeth into the juncture between her right thigh and her pelvis, so close to where the ache is pulsing through Corona's cunt. The next moment, Ianthe laps at the bitemark and drags her tongue ever closer to—

Corona gasps. There's nothing tentative about the way Ianthe _digs_ into her as though Corona were a feast and she starving. Her mouth is soft and wet and hot enough to make Corona's insides melt. It's exactly what she needs. Her whole body is quivering, sinking, forgetting all about the irksome, sticky ache she'd been feeling all day. All that's left in her world is heat and sweat and her sister's perfect mouth that is making her feel this ecstatic.

She's twisting in the sheets, canting her hips this way and that, winding tighter with every flick of Ianthe's tongue at her opening. It feels insanely good and Corona is about to lose it. Her voice rises in a keening wail, twisting and curling like a plume of incense smoke. She's close, she's so close. 

And then Ianthe closes her no longer bloodless lips over Corona's clit and sucks at it gently, swirling her tongue against the nub, and that's—that's all Corona can take. The trembling starts low in her belly and ripples outward like waves on a pond, until her whole body feels like a barrage of fireworks going off one after the other. Ianthe's hands leave showers of sparks across her buzzing skin everywhere she touches and Corona is dimly aware that she's chuckling stupidly to herself but the more she tries to stop it, the more it becomes a mad little giggle.

She has a moment to breathe and come down when Ianthe scoots back up beside her to gather Corona into her arms like an oversized doll. The sight of her is ghastly, like that of a well-fed vampire who did not particularly care about his table manners, but Ianthe is already wiping her face around the devilish grin she's wearing. Corona is glad she doesn't insist on kissing her right now.

Corona's bare legs are beginning to grow cold again and Ianthe's icy feet aren't helping, but for the moment it's comfortable like this. Just catching her breath and gnawing her lips and squirming against Ianthe's too-thin body. Her pain is gone too, dulled to a low simmering at the back of her spine, which is easy to ignore with Ianthe draped against her, not even saying a thing. Corona would have expected her to demand thanks the first chance she got, but so far not a word in that direction. For which she is glad. She nudges her head against her sister's, hoping to convey at least some of her gratitude that way.

Sometimes she wishes they could be like this more often, like they used to be in the idealised version of their childhood, before their House legacy started to slowly break them apart. It's never easy to have a civil conversation with Ianthe, which is as much her own fault as it is Ianthe's, but they're strong in companionable silences.

This time, Corona does not feel the need to break it. In a few minutes, she's going to get up and take a bath to get rid of that tacky feeling of dried sweat. But until she can trust herself to stand on her own two feet again, she's content to soak in Ianthe's presence instead, so calm and agreeable as they rarely are together unless they're plotting someone else's downfall.

Maybe she did them both a favour by forgetting her analgesics. Or Ianthe did, by hiding them away. Turns out Corona can forgive her for that, after all.


End file.
